The Fair God; or, The Last of the 'Tzins
“So be it, so be it! If thou canst bring him, in God’s name, go. If he refuse, then—I have sworn! Hearken to the hell’s roar without! Let me have report quickly. I will wait thee here. Begone!”
Olmedo started. Cortes caught his sleeve, and looked at him fixedly.
“Mira!” he said, in a whisper. “As thou lovest me do this work well. If he fail—if he fail—”
“Well?” said Olmedo, in the same tone.
“Then—then get thee to prayers! Go.”
The audience chamber whither Oli and the priest betook themselves, with Orteguilla to interpret, was crowded with courtiers, who made way for them to the dais upon which Montezuma sat. They kissed his hand, and declining the invitation to be seated began their mission.
“Good king,” said the father, “we bring thee a message from Malinche; and as its object is to stay the bloody battle which is so grievous to us all, and the slaughter which must otherwise go on, we pray thy pardon if we make haste to speak.”
The monarch’s face chilled, and drawing his mantle close he said, coldly,—
“I am listening.”
Olmedo proceeded,—
“The Señor Hernan commiserates the hard lot which compels thee to listen here to the struggle which hath lasted so many days, and always with the same result,—the wasting of thy people. The contest hath become a rebellion against thee as well as against his sovereign and thine. Finally there will be no one left to govern,—nothing, indeed, but an empty valley and a naked lake. In pity for the multitude, he is disposed to help save them from their false leaders. He hath sent us, therefore, to ask thee to join him in one more effort to that end.”
“Said he how I could help him?” asked the king.
“Come and speak to the people, and disperse them, as once before thou didst. And to strengthen thy words, and as his part of the trial, he saith thou mayst pledge him to leave the city as soon as the way is open. Only let there be no delay. He is in waiting to go with thee, good king.”
The monarch listened intently.
“Too late, too late!” he cried. “The ears of my people are turned from me. I am king in name and form only; the power is another’s. I am lost,—so is Malinche. I will not go. Tell him so.”
There was a stir in the chamber, and a groan from the bystanders; but the messengers remained looking at the poor king, as at one who had rashly taken a fatal vow.
“Why do you stay?” he continued, with a glowing face. “What more have I to do with Malinche? See the state to which my serving him has already reduced me.”
“Remember thy people!” said Olmedo, solemnly.
Flashed the monarch’s eyes as he answered,—
“My brave people! I hear them now. They are in arms to save themselves; and they will not believe me or the promises of Malinche. I have spoken.”
Then Oli moved a step toward the dais, and kissing the royal hand, said, with suffused eyes,—
“Thou knowest I love thee, O king; and I say, if thou carest for thyself, go.”
Something there was in the words, in the utterance, probably, that drew the monarch’s attention; leaning forward, he studied the cavalier curiously; over his face the while came the look of a man suddenly called by his fate. His lips parted, his eyes fixed; and but that battle has voices which only the dead may refuse to hear his spirit would have drifted off into unseemly reverie. Recalling himself with an effort, he arose, and said, half-smiling,—
“A man, much less a king, is unfit to live when his friends think to move him from his resolve by appeals to his fears.” And rising, and drawing himself to his full stature, he added, so as to be heard throughout the chamber, “Very soon, if not now, you will understand me when I say I do not care for myself. I desire to die. Go, my friends, and tell Malinche that I will do as he asks, and straightway.”
Oli and Olmedo kissed his hands, and withdrew; whereupon he calmly gave his orders.
Very soon the ’tzin, who was directing the battle from a point near the gate of the coatapantli, saw a warrior appear on the turret so lately occupied by Cortes, and wave a royal panache. He raised his shield overhead at once, and held it there until on his side the combat ceased. The Christians, glad of a breathing spell, quit almost as soon. All eyes then turned to the turret; even the combatants who had been fighting hand to hand across the crest of the parapet, ventured to look that way, when, according to the usage of the infidel court, the heralds came, and to the four quarters of the earth waved their silver wands.
Too well the ’tzin divined the meaning of the ceremony. “Peace,” he seemed to hear, and then, “Lover of Anahuac, servant of the gods,—choose now between king and country. Now or never!” The ecstasy of battle fled from him; his will became infirm as a child’s. In the space between him and the turret the smoke of the guns curled and writhed sensuously, each moment growing fainter and weaker, as did the great purpose to which he thought he had steeled himself. When he brought the shield down, his face was that of a man whom long sickness had laid close to the gates of death. Then came the image of Tula, and then the royal permission to do what the gods enjoined,—nay, more than permission, a charge which left the deed to his hand, that there might be no lingering amongst the strangers. “O sweetheart!” he said, to himself, “if this duty leave me stainless, whom may I thank but you!”
Then he spoke to Hualpa, though with a choking voice,—
“The king is coming. I must go and meet him. Get my bow, and stand by me with an arrow in place for instant use.”
Hualpa moved away slowly, watching the ’tzin; then he returned, and asked, in a manner as full of meaning as the words themselves,—
“Is there not great need that the arrow should be very true?”
The master’s eyes met his as he answered, “Yes; be careful.”
Yet the hunter stayed.
“O ’tzin,” he said, “his blood is not in my veins. He is only my benefactor. Your days are not numbered, like mine, and as yet you are blameless; for the sake of the peace that makes life sweet, I pray you let my hand do this service.”
And the ’tzin took his hand, and replied, fervently,—
“There is nothing so precious as the sight that is quick to see the sorrows of others, unless it be the heart that hurries to help them. After this, I may never doubt your love; but the duty is mine,—made so by the gods,—and he has asked it of me. Lo, the heralds appear!”
“He has asked it of you! that is enough,” and Hualpa stayed no longer.
Upon the turret the carpet was spread and the canopy set up, and forth came a throng of cavaliers and infidel lords, the latter splendidly bedight; then appeared Montezuma and Cortes.
As the king moved forward a cry, blent of all feelings,—love, fear, admiration, hate, reverence,—burst from the great audience; after which only Guatamozin and Hualpa, in front of the gate, were left standing.
And such splendor flashed from the monarch’s person, from his sandals of gold, tunic of feathers, tilmatli of white, and copilli51 inestimably jeweled; from his face and mien issued such majesty that, after the stormy salutation, the multitude became of the place a part, motionless as the stones, the dead not more silent.
With his hands crossed upon his breast he stood awhile, seeing and being seen, and all things waited for him to speak; even the air seemed waiting, it was so very hushed. He looked to the sky, flecked with unhallowed smoke; to the sun, whose heaven, just behind the curtain of brightness, was nearer to him than ever before; to the temple, place of many a royal ceremony, his own coronation the grandest of all; to the city, beautiful in its despoilment; to the people, for whom, though they knew it not, he had come to die; at last his gaze settled upon Guatamozin, and as their eyes met, he smiled; then shaking the tilmatli from his shoulder, he raised his head, and said, in a voice from which all weakness was gone, his manner never so kingly,—
“I know, O my people, that you took up arms to set me free, and that was right; but how often since then have I told you that I am not a prisoner; that the strangers are my guests; that I am free to leave them when I please, and that I live with them because I love them?”
As in a calm a wind sometimes blows down, and breaks the placid surface of a lake into countless ripples, driving them hither and thither in sparkling confusion, these words fell upon the listening mass; a yell of anger rose, and from the temple descended bitter reproaches.
Yet the ’tzin was steady; and when the outcry ended, the king went on,—
“I am told your excuse now is, that you want to drive my friends from the city. My children, here stands Malinche himself. He hears me say for him that, if you will open the way, he and all with him will leave of their own will.”
Again the people broke out in revilements, but the monarch waved his hand angrily, and said,—
“As I am yet your king, I bid you lay down your arms—”
Then the ’tzin took the ready bow from Hualpa; full to the ear he drew the arrow. Steady the arm, strong the hand,—an instant, and the deed was done! In the purple shadow of the canopy, amidst his pomp of royalty, Montezuma fell down, covered, when too late, by a score of Christian shields. Around him at the same time fell a shower of stones from the temple.
Then, with a shout of terror, the companies arose as at a word and fled, and, panic-blind, tossed the ’tzin here and there, and finally left him alone in the square with Hualpa.
“All is lost!” said the latter, disconsolately.
“Lost!” said the ’tzin. “On the temple yonder lies Malinche’s last hope. No need now to assail the palace. When the king comes out, hunger will go in and fight for us.”
“But the people,—where are they?”
The ’tzin raised his hand and pointed to the palace,—
“So the strangers have asked. See!”
Hualpa turned, and saw the gate open and the cavaliers begin to ride forth.
“Go they this way, or yon,” continued the ’tzin, “they will find the same answer. Five armies hold the city; a sixth keeps the lake.”
Down the beautiful street the Christians rode unchallenged until they came to the first canal. While restoring the bridge there, they heard the clamor of an army, and lo! out of the gardens, houses, and temples, far as the vision reached, the infidels poured and blocked the way.
Then the cavaliers rode back, and took the way to Tlacopan. There, too, the first canal was bridgeless; and as they stood looking across the chasm, they heard the same clamor and beheld the same martial apparition.
Once more they rode, this time up the street toward the northern dike, and with the same result.
“Ola, father!” said Cortes, returned to the palace, “we may not stay here after to-morrow.”
“Amen!” cried Olmedo.
“Look thou to the sick and wounded; such as can march or move, get them ready.”
“And the others?” asked the good man.
“Do for them what thou dost for the dying. Shrieve them!”
So saying, the Christian leader sank on his seat, and gave himself to sombre thought.
He had sped his second and—LAST BOLT!
The rest of the day was spent in preparation for retreat.
CHAPTER XV
THE DEATH OF MONTEZUMA
Again Martin Lopez had long conference with Cortes; after which, with his assistant carpenters, he went to work, and, until evening time, the echoes of the court-yard danced to the sounds of saw and hammer.
And while they worked, to Cortes came Avila and Mexia.
“What thou didst intrust to us, Señor, we have done. Here is a full account of all the treasure, our royal master’s included.”
Cortes read the statement, then called his chamberlain, Christobal de Guzman.
“Go thou, Don Christobal, and bring what is here reported into one chamber, where it may be seen of all. And send hither the royal secretaries, and Pedro Hernandez, my own clerk.”
The secretaries came.
“Now, Señores Avila and Mexia, follow my chamberlain, and in his presence and that of these gentlemen, take from the treasure the portion belonging to his Majesty, the emperor. Of our wounded horses, then choose ye eight, and of the Tlascalans, eighty, and load them with the royal dividend, and what more they can carry; and have them always ready to go. And as leaving anything of value where the infidels may be profited is sinful, I direct,—and of this let all bear witness, Hernandez for me, and the secretaries for his Majesty,—I direct, I say, that ye set the remainder apart accessible to the soldiers, with leave to each one of them to take therefrom as much as he may wish. Make note, further, that what is possible to save all this treasure hath been done. Write it, good gentlemen, write it; for if any one thinketh differently, let him say what more I can do. I am waiting to hear. Speak!”
No one spoke.
And while the division of the large plunder went on, and afterwards the men scrambled for the remainder, Montezuma was dying.
In the night a messenger sought Cortes.
“Señor,” he said, “the king hath something to ask of you. He will not die comforted without seeing you.”
“Die, say’st thou?” and Cortes arose hastily. “I had word that his hurts were not deadly.”
“If he die, Señor, it will be by his own hand. The stones wrought him but bruises; and if he would let the bandages alone the arrow-cut would shortly stop bleeding.”
“Yes, yes,” said Cortes. “Thou wouldst tell me that this barbarian, merely from being long a king, hath a spirit of such exceeding fineness that, though the arrow had not cut him deeper than thy dull rowel marketh thy horse’s flank, yet would he die. Where is he now?”
“In the audience chamber.”
“Bastante! I will see him. Tell him so.”
Cortes stood fast, thinking.
“This man hath been useful to me; may not some profit be eked out of him dead? So many saw him get his wounds, and so many will see him die of them, that the manner of his taking off may not be denied. What if I send his body out and indict his murderers? If I could take from them the popular faith even, then—By my conscience, I will try the trick!”
And taking his sword and plumed hat and tossing a cloak over his shoulder he sought the audience chamber.
There was no guard at the door. The little bells, as he threw aside the curtains, greeted him accusingly. Within, all was shadow, except where a flickering lamplight played over and around the dais; nevertheless, he saw the floor covered with people, some prostrate, others on their knees or crouching face down; and the grim speculator thought, as he passed slowly on, Verily, this king must also have been a good man and a generous.
The couch of the dying monarch was on the dais in the accustomed place of the throne. At one side stood the ancients; at the other his queens knelt, weeping. Nenetzin hid her face in his hand, and sobbed as if her heart were breaking; she had been forgiven. Now and then Maxtla bent over him to cleanse his face of the flowing blood. A group of cavaliers were off a little way, silent witnesses; and as Cortes drew near, Olmedo, who had been in prayer, extended toward the sufferer the ivory cross worn usually at his girdle.
“O king,” said the good man imploringly, “thou hast yet a moment of life, which, I pray thee, waste not. Take this holy symbol upon thy breast, cross thy hands upon it, and say after me: I believe in One God, the Father Almighty, in our Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, and in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life. Then pray thou: O God the Father of Heaven, O God the Son, Redeemer of the World, O God the Holy Ghost, O Holy Trinity, One God, have mercy upon my soul! Do these things, say these words, O king, and thou shalt live after thy bones have gone to dust. Thou shalt live forever, eternally happy.”
Courtiers and cavaliers, the queens, Nenetzin, even Cortes, watched the monarch’s waning face; never yet were people indifferent to the issue—the old, old issue—of true god against false. Marina finished the interpretation; then he raised his hand tremulously, and put the holy sign away, saying,—
“I have but a moment to live, and will not desert the faith of my fathers now.”
A great sigh of relief broke from the infidels; the Christians shuddered, and crossed themselves; then Cortes stepped to Olmedo’s side.
“I received your message, and am here,” said he, sternly. He had seen the cross rejected.
The king turned his pale face, and fixed his glazing eyes upon the conqueror; and such power was there in the look that the latter added, with softening manner, “What I can do for thee I will do. I have always been thy true friend.”
“O Malinche, I hear you, and your words make dying easy,” answered Montezuma, smiling faintly.
With an effort he sought Cortes’ hand, and looking at Acatlan and Tecalco, continued,—
“Let me intrust these women and their children to you and your lord. Of all that which was mine but now is yours,—lands, people, empire,—enough to save them from want and shame were small indeed. Promise me; in the hearing of all these, promise, Malinche.”
Taint of anger was there no longer on the soul of the great Spaniard.
“Rest thee, good king!” he said, with feeling. “Thy queens and their children shall be my wards. In the hearing of all these, I so swear.”
The listener smiled again; his eyes closed, his hand fell down; and so still was he that they began to think him dead. Suddenly he stirred, and said faintly, but distinctly,—
“Nearer, uncles, nearer.”
The old men bent over him, listening.
“A message to Guatamozin,—to whom I give my last thought as king. Say to him, that this lingering in death is no fault of his; the aim was true, but the arrow splintered upon leaving the bow. And lest the world hold him to account for my blood, hear me say, all of you, that I bade him do what he did. And in sign that I love him, take my sceptre, and give it to him—”
The voice fell away, yet the lips moved; lower the ancients stooped,—
“Tula and the empire go with the sceptre,” he murmured, and they were his last words,—his will.
A wail from the women proclaimed him dead.
The unassoilzied great may not see heaven; they pass from life into history, where, as in a silent sky, they shine for ever and ever. So the light of the Indian King comes to us, a glow rather than a brilliance; for, of all fates, his was the saddest. Better not to be than to become the ornament of another’s triumph. Alas for him whose death is an immortal sorrow!
Out of the palace-gate in the early morning passed the lords of the court in procession, carrying the remains of the monarch. The bier was heavy with royal insignia; nothing of funeral circumstance was omitted; honor to the dead was policy. At the same time the body was delivered, Cortes indicted the murderers; the ancients through whom he spoke were also the bearers of the dead king’s last will; back to the bold Spaniard, therefore, came the reply,—
“Cowards, who at the last moment beg for peace! you are not two suns away from your own graves! Think only of them!”
And while Cortes was listening to the answer, the streets about the palace filled with companies, and crumbling parapet and solid wall shook under the shock of a new assault.
Then Cortes’ spirit arose.
“Mount, gentlemen!” he cried. “The hounds come scrambling for the scourge; shame on us, if we do not meet them. And hearken! The prisoners report a plague in the city, of which the new king is dying, and hundreds are sick. It is the small-pox.”
“Viva la viruela!” shouted Alvarado.
The shout spread through the palace.
“Where God’s curse is,” continued Cortes, “Christians need not stay. To-night we will go. To clear the way and make this day memorable let us ride. Are ye ready?”
They answered joyously.
Again the gates were opened, and with a goodly following of infantry, into the street they rode. Nothing withstood them; they passed the canals by repairing the bridges or filling up the chasms; they rode the whole length of the street until the causeway clear to Tlacopan was visible. St. James fought at their head; even the Holy Mother stooped from her high place, and threw handfuls of dust in the enemy’s eyes.
In the heat of the struggle suddenly the companies fell back, and made open space around the Christians; then came word that commissioners from king Cuitlahua waited in the palace to treat of peace.
“The heathen is an animal!” said Cortes, unable to repress his exultation. “To cure him of temper and win his love, there is nothing like the scourge. Let us ride back, gentlemen.”
In the court-yard stood four caciques, stately men in peaceful garb. They touched the pavement with their palms.
“We are come to say, O Malinche, that the lord Cuitlahua, our king, yields to your demand for peace. He prays you to give your terms to the pabas whom you captured on the temple, that they may bring them to him forthwith.”
The holy men were brought from their cells, one leaning upon the other. The instructions were given; then the two, with the stately commissioners, were set without the gate, and Cortes and his army went to rest, never so contented.
They waited and waited; but the envoys came not. When the sun went down, they knew themselves deceived; and then there were sworn many full, round, Christian oaths, none so full, so round, and so Christian as Cortes’.
A canoe, meantime, bore Io’ to Tula. In the quiet and perfumed shade of the chinampa he rested, and soothed the fever of his wound.
Meanwhile, also, a courier from the teotuctli passed from temple to temple; short the message, but portentous,—
“Blessed be Huitzil’, and all the gods of our fathers! And, as he at last saved his people, blessed be the memory of Montezuma! Purify the altars, and make ready for the sacrifice, for to-morrow there will be victims!”
CHAPTER XVI
ADIEU TO THE PALACE
At sunset a cold wind blew from the north, followed by a cloud which soon filled the valley with mist; soon the mist turned to rain; then the rain turned to night, and the night to deepest blackness.
The Christians, thinking only of escape from the city, saw the change of weather with sinking hearts. With one voice they had chosen the night as most favorable for the movement, but they had in mind then a semi-darkness warmed by south winds and brilliant with stars; not a time like this so unexpectedly come upon them,—tempest added to gloom, icy wind splashing the earth with icy water.
Under the walls the sentinels cowered shivering and listening and, as is the habit of wanderers surrounded by discomforts and miseries, musing of their homes so far away, and of the path thither; on the land so beset, on the sea so viewless. Recalled to present duty, they saw nothing but the fires of the nearest temple faintly iridescent, and heard only the moans of the blast and the pattering of the rain, always so in harmony with the spirit when it is oppressed by loneliness and danger.
Meantime, the final preparation for retreat went on with the completeness of discipline.
About the close of the second watch of the night, Cortes, with his personal attendants,—page, equerry, and secretaries,—left his chamber and proceeded to the eastern gate, where he could best receive reports, and assure himself, as the divisions filed past him, that the column was formed as he had ordered. The superstructure of the gate offered him shelter; but he stood out, bridle in hand, his back to the storm. There he waited, grimly silent, absorbed in reflections gloomy as the night itself.
Everything incident to the preparation which required light had been done before the day expired; outside the house, therefore, there was not a spark to betray the movement to the enemy; in fact, nothing to betray it except the beat of horses’ hoofs and the rumble of gun-carriages, and they were nigh drowned by the tempest. If the saints would but help him clear of the streets of the city, would help him to the causeway even, without bringing the infidels upon him, sword and lance would win the rest: so the leader prayed and trusted the while he waited.
“My son, is it thou?” asked a man, close at his side.
He turned quickly, and replied, “Father Bartolomé! Welcome! What dost thou bring?”
